This business about amends is serious stuff. I was thinking about this today and the relation it has with my sobriety.
What brought all this to my attention was a call from a friend, who was thinking about some amends. Plus the fact that I too have an amend to make today. His is the 9th Step and mine is the 10th Step.
All this made me go back and review my own experiences with the 9th and 10th Steps and how it has affected my own sobriety. The amends I made formally in my 9th Step were very much guided by my sponsors. Only on a couple of occasions, when I went off on my own, did near disaster strike. One, where I told someone that I forgave them for their wrongs, did an explosion take place. It took two years to breach the gap of the wreckage I created in a friendship. Painful lesson I learned to keep to my side of the street and to ask advice before attempting anything like that.
Housecleaning is necessary to my spiritual life and my sobriety, whether it’s for harms I’ve done others in the past, or has to do with my current relationships. I’ve learned that this is a spiritual program of action and amends are central to that activity. The 9th Step tells me that I have to live this spiritual life. I now see amends as an act of gratitude for all that has been given to me.
By cleaning up the wreckage of the past and what I create today through my character defects I am clearing a path to my higher power. Just as important, it leads me closer to some degree of humility. A virtue I truly need in my life, if I want to make any progress and remain sober.
Anyway, I was grateful to my friend for his conversation today. It certainly clarified some muddled thinking and offered me an opportunity for right action.